


Stating the Obvious

by Princess of Geeks (Princess)



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: 'Sentinel Too', Episode Related, First Time, M/M, Shamanism, The Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-19
Updated: 2010-03-19
Packaged: 2017-10-08 03:12:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess/pseuds/Princess%20of%20Geeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My take on the glorious cliche of how the aftermath of the odyssey with Alex brought Jim and Blair together. In my version, Blair gets serious about exploring a kind of New Agey Shamanism and truly must embrace, in some fashion, that tradition in order to become Incacha's successor as Jim's Guide. It's kind of a We're Not Gay, We Just Love Each Other kind of story, actually. But only sort of. It's more of a, We Weren't All That Gay, But Now We So Are story. :).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stating the Obvious

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Lemon Drop for the beta.

The chicken parmesan has been tasted, praised and consumed. The pots and saute pans and plates are scrubbed clean. Their clothes from the Sierra Verde trip are spinning in the dryer. One of them will have to go and get them soon. Jim dries his hands on a dishtowel, hips against the counter, as he watches Blair stretch tall to put away the two wine glasses in an upper cabinet. Blair still has a cough; is still taking antibiotics. Otherwise he seems fine, if a little quieter, a little more serious. Jim takes a deep breath. So much yet to talk about. After the discontinuity, the black hole, that was the brief and utter unreality of the universe without Blair, events had speeded up to a pace that had made introspection impossible. Jim is generally pretty happy at that speed, but even he has had to admit it's time to take stock. Slow down. Put on the brakes. He notices how scared this makes him. He closes his eyes, registers his own sweat, his own pulse rate. Shiny, sharp thuds as Blair drops silverware into the drawer. _Here goes nothing,_ Jim thinks.

"When you found Alex and me on the beach in Sierra Verde, what did you see?"

Blair looks at him over a shoulder. His hair is pulled back. He puts away their plates -- simple shiny pottery with a blue glaze, another souvenir of a trip to the jungle. Another trip, a much less crazy trip.

Blair says, "Well, you were there!"

"Humor me."

Blair sighs. He leans on the counter. He's not looking at Jim. "Well, I followed you. Clearly you knew where to meet her; I've wondered about that, because how could you have made the arrangements? There was no way you could have communicated with her. So somehow you knew where to go --"

"We met in one of those visions. We had the same dream; where to meet on that beach."

Blair turns around, his face a study in astonishment. "Right. Okay. So you knew where to go, so you were running, down the beach, and here she came, running up to you." His gaze slides away from Jim's and he has a distant look, and his forehead crinkles as if the remembering is painful. "And you came together and you just stopped. And the thing with the hands." Blair sketches the gesture, starts to bend his elbows, lift his hands, palms turned out to Jim, and then he stops and shrugs. He meets Jim's eyes again, questioning.

Jim steps toward him and snaps his fingers, makes a brusque, beckoning motion, and his hands are there, palms toward Blair, just above waist level. Blair's hands flatten against Jim's and four hands rise, linked, to just above Blair's shoulders and just below Jim's. Fingers interlace, and they frown into each others' eyes. _Time to put on the brakes. Time to hold on, hold up._

Blair says peevishly, "What are we doing here? Some kind of reenactment?"

"Blair." Jim's voice is admonishing and pleading, all in the one brief syllable. Blair subsides. Jim breathes, tries to feel without dialing up. Blair's palms, his warmth, the connection of their hands. Blair's fingers are thick; his nails are short. His hands are warm and damp. He is nervous. Their fingers tighten.

Blair had speculated earlier that Alex and Jim had been pulled, without understanding it, into something real, something ritualistic, a persistent echo of something that went back to the ancient practices of the Olmec people who built the temple for their Sentinels. Jim doesn't know, but Blair could very well be right. With Alex, and now with Blair, standing this way feels weighty and significant, like Jim is stuck in a slo-mo instant replay. It's important, like the repetitive thud of a judge's gavel, or maybe like the count after you pull the pin from a grenade. Or maybe it's the just weight of potential embarrassment. Jim doesn't quite know what he's doing, but he wants to feel his way back to the path he is starting to think he should have been on all along. The path of light. And after all, who burns the brightest in Jim's life?

They stand there, palms touching. Jim is trying to sense how to slip into some state of enlightenment. With Alex, he had been half-hypnotized starting from their first meeting, and once they were physically touching, the real world was suffused, highlighted, with meaning and urgency. But all he feels now is frustration. Maybe this is wrong. Blair is waiting, but he's a bit annoyed. Jim knows that Blair knows what happened next with Alex. Blair also knows this was and is important for Jim and he's going with it. He doesn't stiffen or pull away when Jim unlaces his fingers and runs his hands up Blair's arms and pulls him into an embrace. By this point Alex and Jim had been kissing, but Blair's arms just come up around Jim's back and they stand there in their kitchen, hugging. Blair's face tucks nicely into Jim's neck. Blair's breath is warm.

Blair continues dutifully, "And that was, uh, when you kissed her and then I shouted at you and, uh, she didn't shoot me." Jim tightens his arms. He's not getting enlightened, unless you want to count the absolute conviction that Blair feels fucking wonderful up against him like this. Warm and alive and solid. Jim can feel Blair's sharp breathing, feel his checked impatience, reined in hard. His hair smells like parmesan. When you grate that stuff from a block, it flies everywhere. Blair takes another, deeper breath. Blair says, "You want to tell me what we're doing here?"

"There's just a little bit more."

Quick inhale. "Yeah, okay, uh, but you _will_ tell me what's going on eventually, right?"

"Yeah."

There's no priestly voice identifying someone as the bride here, but Jim leans back enough to bend his head and he kisses Blair. Their eyes are open. Blair's going with it, going with it, not too tense, just a bit tense, and he tastes like butter and red wine and his mouth is damp with life and his lips are plump and ripe. Jim inhales, seeing Blair's cheek, seeing the bright light from overhead glitter in his faint stubble. Jim pulls back and Blair has closed his eyes. He's still got that little frown. Joy blooms in Jim's chest, just joy, that they can touch, that they survived, they got through it. That he didn't, as Blair so succinctly commented, lose his way. That they lived to fight another day. Blair's arms tighten around his ribs and he opens his eyes. Jim is grinning like an idiot. No guilty verdict has been announced. No grenade has exploded. No one stood up when no one said, "If anyone knows of any reason why these two people should not...."

"Not to ruin what is obviously a moment for you here, dude, but is this the part where you PLEASE tell me what's going on?"

The air in the room is purring. "Yeah. Absolutely.... but let's walk. Let's go."

_cut_

Jim and Blair have headed south along Prospect and cut over to the promenade. They have mentioned the ice cream place but that is just a red herring. They have their hands in their jacket pockets and occasionally their elbows bump. Jim looks at his partner (_associate, observer, buddy, colleague, researcher, ride-along, roommate_).

Since they've been back from Sierra Verde, reality has been obstinately here and now. No wash of blue-white highlights signaling a transition to the mysterious. No visions of wolves or jaguars, spotted or black. It's as if any supernatural nudgings are being withheld, because Jim should have all the information he needs now. It's as if he's expected to simply follow through on what he should finally know. Everything is poised, waiting. _Got it? Have you finally got it, Ellison?_

When he had arrived back at the hotel in Sierra Verde after discovering that Alex's accomplice was dead, he had drawn his gun and busted down the door because he had heard an insistent heartbeat. He had thought it was Alex, because that was how it had been back in Cascade before the big chase began -- he could hear her whenever she was near. But the heart he heard turned out to be Blair's. The two of them, as wolf and as spotted jaguar, had been haunting his dreams for days before the balloon went up. Then the heartbeats, taking up residence in his skull along with the dreams. Finding that out, about the heartbeats, was a clue. Jim was treating it as a big honking clue to be followed up.

Jim had had to leave Blair in a hospital bed and jump on a jet, and the next thing he knows he's surprising Blair and Megan in Jim and Simon's room. The kid was irrepressible, leaping up and following like that, resuming his self-appointed job just as soon as he could talk his way past the doctors. Jim has a pretty good idea how _that_ went down. Jim wonders how to tell Blair that Blair's heartbeat has never left his awareness since that morning in the hotel, except for the hours that Jim had to go to the temple alone. Incacha had advised him to leave Megan and Blair behind then. _Your greatest trial,_ Incacha had said. Jim had been pretty sure he knew what Incacha meant at the time, but he is revising his theory about that, moment by moment. Now, Blair is walking along beside him, bouncing a little, as usual, trying to keep up with Jim's longer stride. He is staring at the sidewalk, his thoughts a million miles away.

Jim says, "You remember when you woke up in the hospital after you drowned."

"Yeah, shit yeah, how could I forget?" Blair glances at him.

"Your vision, of your near-death experience, or whatever the docs like to call it."

"Me as a wolf, running, through the jungle." Blair's hand describes a wavy path in front of him, like a dolphin leaping. "Yeah, sure."

"Remember how we realized that we were seeing the same things?"   
"Yeah, and it makes sense, if you don't try to overanalyze it." Jim smiles. "You were rescuing me, our friendship, our bond, an intense moment, an out-of-body experience, like I said at the time -- a great mystery. One of the greatest."

"You remember I told you Incacha appeared to me and told me how to bring you back." Blair stops and stares, hands in pockets. He took down his hair after doing the dishes and now it floats around his face. Jim stops, too. "He told me to send my jaguar after your wolf, to use its power." Jim puts his hand on the small of Blair's back, urging him to walk, and they start down the sidewalk again. After a minute Jim pulls Blair's hand out of his coat pocket and just holds on to it. Their hands swing a little, in time with their steps.

Blair mutters, "So the power animals collide on the visionary plane and at that moment I am reviving on the material plane." Blair glances down. "Jim, you're holding my hand."

"Is that okay?"

"Well, yeah, of course, but it's. It's. Just."

"Gay?"

"Well, sort of, but not really, because it's more, just friendly, I think, given the conversation. I mean, in European cultures it's common, it's just not a normal thing you expect in U.S. society, I mean--" Jim clears his throat. "Right. Okay. The vision after you all pulled me out of the fountain. The jaguar and the wolf. We both saw them."

"So there's that. Then in the Temple of Light, Alex induced those hallucinations--"

Blair slaps his thigh, hard, with his free hand. "_Shit,_ I've got to go back to the shamanic stuff. Shit, I knew I'd been neglecting that, I _knew_ it was important ever since Incacha's last words, but I get so hung up on the _Sentinel_ part of it, measuring your responses, and hung up on the police work and doing what you need to get through the frigging day-to-day of the police work, and on my own issues, too, you know, the whole crossing the line from observer and researcher to participant, that stuff is huge, and I know that's part of it for me, but shit, I've been neglecting the power animal as shamanic messenger stuff, and that's not what Incacha needed to happen but he ran out of time; there's something important here and I just--"

Jim grabs Blair by the shoulder and moves in front of him and gently puts his other hand on Blair's other shoulder. The push of Jim's hands stems the tide of words. Jim looks into his friend's wild eyes.

Jim says, "Sentinel of the Great City, and the shaman who watches his back." He gives Blair a gentle little shake. "In my visions in the Temple, Alex wanted us to be together, her and me, literally to go down in flames together. But you know what happened? You know what I heard? Incacha's voice, asking me what I feared. And the answer was in what I saw, the visions, hallucinations, whatever. They were all you, Blair. They were all about how much I feared losing you. How much I feel responsible for you. Connected to you."

Jim releases him and starts walking again. Blair walks, too, just to keep up. He smooths his hair out of his eyes and when his hand comes down, it meets Jim's big hand and they clasp. This time Blair doesn't argue. This time he holds on tight. Jim opens his mouth to go on, but he realizes Blair is thinking hard, looking at the sidewalk ahead of his feet, and Jim sticks his free hand back in the slash pocket of his bomber jacket and keeps walking, choosing their path while Blair thinks. Ten paces. Twenty. They have passed the ice cream place without stopping. No one stares at them -- two men walking down the sidewalk, holding hands.

Jim speaks softly, hoping to nudge Blair to the next place he needs this to go. "You told me when we first met that the Sentinel generally had someone to watch his back. I think I need to read up on that, see what that means. Incacha was my teacher when my senses first came back on line, but I think this is something else. I hope this is something Burton knew about."

"The way of the shaman. That's what Incacha said. Handing it on to me. Of course he had no way of knowing that is the title of Harner's book, Harner the inheritor of Eliade's work, if not in actuality then in spirit." Blair waves his hand, cutting short whatever academic lineage he was wallowing around in. "So the wolf's my power animal of the moment, huh? My spirit guide?"

"Apparently."

"Huh. Cool. A wolf."

"Blair, we need to see what your sources say about the Sentinel's partner."

_cut_

It's late, and Jim is sprawled on the floor of Blair's office at Rainier, a big pillow under his arm, reading Blair's antique copy of Burton again, carefully turning the brittle pages. After several hours of fairly fruitless reading of secondary sources, he has gone back to Burton, unsatisfied by the summaries and digests he has been perusing in the stack of printouts and faded academic journals that now lie on the floor, down toward his knees. The other reviewers and researchers are looking for things that Jim isn't, right now, and they skate away from the point over and over again. Burton's prose is purple and at times downright evasive, in Jim's estimation, but he is getting through it.

Blair is at his desk, his laptop glowing. At first he gave Jim a running commentary on what he was finding. He was quickly shredding through websites and databases that had the latest research on shamanic journeying, indigenous religions and ecstatic experiences, with and without hallucinogens. Lots of new research being done, in anthropology, comparative religion, psychiatry, pharmacology, lots of leads to follow. Lots and lots of leads. Blair reads much faster than Jim and he is a wizard with the academic databases. He has one finger curled over his upper lip, and the screen is weirdly reflected in his glasses. But he has fallen silent. He hasn't said anything for some time. Jim tries not to get caught in the glowing bluish reflections on Blair's glasses, a hall of mirrors for him if he strays toward the prisms at their edges. But he looks closer, focuses in, and sees that Blair has switched to American Indian studies databases, and gender studies. The words trail off as the reflection of the screen in Blair's glasses sweeps into a curve. Jim blinks his straining eyes and realizes he should take a break. Jim carefully lays the open volume of Burton on the Guatemalan scarf spread in front of him, and stretches. He rolls onto his back and squeezes the shoulder he'd been leaning on. "There's just so many hints, just tantalizing hints."

"Burton was just like me, I think. More hung up on the Sentinel than on his -- her? -- backup. But for different reasons, I guess."

"Backup is police jargon. That's not in Burton."

"Burton mostly says 'partner,' doesn't he? Or 'guide.' "

"Guide, yeah."

Blair clears his throat. "While you've been checking out the primary source text I've, uh, been reviewing the material on the berdache." He turns toward Jim and Jim sees that Blair is blushing a little. Jim leans back on the big pillow and links his hands behind his head, ready to listen.

"I've never heard of that word," Jim says. Why is Blair blushing?

"Among the Great Plains cultures of Native Americans the shamans were often berdache, which is a French term, actually, like shaman is a word from the Siberian tribes but it gets applied to all the cultures by the researchers. But anyway. They were men who would, um, assume the female role in that society. They were like the drag queens of the Plains, except that is so not fair either. But these berdache, they were men, and they actually married men, and their culture had extremely rigid sex roles, kind of like ours, actually, and they were men who lived as women, and yet these cultures saw them as inherently very powerful because they carried both essences, if you will, the masculine and the feminine. The men the berdache married were treated no different from the other men at all, by the way. A berdache was considered quite a catch, actually, because he was usually stronger than the other women and could do more work, you know. And with the shamanic thing, you didn't have to be a berdache to be a shaman, and all berdache were not automatically shamans, either, but there it is."

Jim is smiling. Blair is ahead of him on the trail, as usual.

Blair goes on, "And now I guess I better review the marriage customs of the Chopec, see what Incacha's culture taught about homosexuality. Shit. I suppose you would know about all that, unless that's part of the stuff you can't remember ..." Blair trails off and Jim sees his hands are shaking. Jim reaches over and pats his booted foot.

"See, I married Carolyn because I was lonely and she was willing to put up with me. At least for a while. And because in the military and in the cops, the closet becomes a way of life, you know? And you can make yourself give up things, if they are too hard to reconcile with the other important things that you have to do. I mean, there are exceptions, but you do what you have to do to blend in."

Blair is looking down at Jim, looking rueful. "You coming out to me, Jim? Right here in my office? Three years later?"

"Uh huh."

"Well shit." Blair is thinking hard, tapping his desk with two knuckles, bone on wood. There is a pause.

Jim adds, "You're not gonna find much on same-sex relationships among the Chopec."

"You looked already."

"Well, I do get the internet at the office, you know... I think we're kind of on our own here, Chief, unless I can find something in your Burton." Blair has not recoiled, not yet. So. Good.

Blair takes a deep breath. His hands quiet on his desk. He seems calm. "So, it was losing me that you most feared? That's what you saw."

Jim nods. "Alex didn't have anyone to teach her, to guide her. Even if you were willing to teach her, she rejected that. You said she lost her way and that's exactly what happened. You nailed it. Unfortunately for you, she just happened to be a murderous sociopathic bitch on top of it." Jim sits up and links his arms loosely around his knees, peering up at Blair. "But I can't lose my way, because I have a Guide. I have you."

Blair regards him seriously. Jim can hear him thinking. _My brother... Come on in. The water's nice._

Jim goes on, "There's just a lot of stuff that's getting a lot more clear to me now since this disaster with Alex. A lot of stuff about you. About us."

"So, is the point, or one of the points, that now you want to, uh, kiss me? And not in a reenactment?"

"Yup... So, the question is, just, if _you_ want to." Jim looks up at him without flinching. That's it. That's all of it, all Jim knows up to this point. Well, there's a lot more he could say, a lot more apologies he needs to make, about his utter loss of control with Alex, about throwing Blair out, about the hell that broke loose when he was in the same time zone as another Sentinel, but maybe all that can be hammered out if they can get through this. He waits, amazed at his own composure. He wonders what Blair sees in his face.

Blair tears his glasses off and puts them on the desk and gets up. He paces. "You gotta understand, I'm totally not opposed to the idea, as an idea. I'm totally fine with it as a concept; I have gay friends, gay students. It's just that it's not something I ever connected to myself, you know? I just, it would be..."

Jim has slowly gotten to his feet, and he moves nearer, so that when Blair turns, Jim is right there, within reaching distance. As Blair runs out of words, runs out of energy to wave his hands, Jim folds his palms over Blair's shoulders and slowly, so slowly, reels Blair in. Jim tilts his head and kisses Blair again. Gently, carefully, putting a hand to Blair's cheek. Breath rushes out of Blair's nose and his arms slide along Jim's ribs. Jim feels him lean in, soften up, and Jim smiles into the kiss and takes Blair's weight. Blair wraps his hand around the back of Jim's neck, and he's taking control of the kiss, feeling it, testing. Tasting. Their mouths speed up, darting and clinging. Speedy short kisses. Longer, lingering. The inside of Blair's mouth tastes like warm oranges. Jim grunts a little, low in his throat. This is getting less experimental and more hot with every passing second, at least for him. He slides his hand down Blair's back and presses him close. They pause for breath. Blair's eyes are closed.

Jim half-whispers, "It must be working for you just a little, Chief. I can smell you." Blair is just kind of sagging there, relaxed, breathing, feeling it.

"You really can smell arousal."

"When motivated." Jim is smiling.

"This is so weird." Blair's eyes are still closed.

"Yeah. But in a good way?"

Blair backs up, still willfully blind, until his butt connects with the edge of his desk. He hitches a hip up and sits, and Jim follows him in, stands between Blair's legs. Blair slides his arms around Jim's waist and pulls. They kiss some more, the play of seducer and seduced flowing back and forth. Blair strokes Jim's short hair with his palms. They're both hard now.

"You feel so good," Jim whispers. "And you're so damn beautiful." Relief is flooding him, almost as powerful as his desire. Blair is going with it. Blair likes it.

"You think so," Blair whispers back, stroking Jim's cheek with two fingers. His glance skips over Jim's face, and his fingers keep stroking, gently stroking. Jim waits, loving how close Blair is, loving the warm animal reality of Blair under his hands, feeling Blair's knees pressing in against his legs. The pause stretches out. Jim hesitates on the edge of drowning in Blair's eyes, kind of a mini-zone-out, and makes himself widen his focus. Blair is just sitting there, holding him, looking. Jim realizes how tired he is, how hard it's been to get to this point, how much everything can get completely fucked from here, and not in a good way, either.

Jim says, "Can we go home?" Blair frowns. "We can stop here, you know. We can just stop right here with this."

"I know."

"I'm not gonna slam you up against the wall this time or something." They both chuckle. Up this close, Blair's eyes have a sunny corona within the blue. The almost-invisible crows' feet are just a little less tanned than the rest of his face. His lips are full, kissed to a deep red. _I did that to his mouth._ Blair is beautiful.

Blair says, "Let's shut this down and go home."

_cut_

It rained while they were reading, and the streets are damp, and the lights reflect in the wet -- red, green, sickly yellow. Jim drives. They don't touch. They are thinking. The silence is friendly, not fraught.

Blair says, "This thing between us. This sexual thing. Has it been the elephant in the living room, like they say in the 12-Step world, all this time?"

"What's that?"

"Hm, never did the 12-Step thing. Of course. Well, you know, the elephant. The big obvious thing that it's impossible to talk about but it's always there?"

"I don't know, Sandburg... Repression, being oblivious to things. I did a lot of that, off and on, or, had that happen. The cause and effect? Hard to sort out. You know. But it's not just that an attraction between us might have been there all along and been just more ... comfortable ... acceptable ... to ignore. I think there's something else going on here. Something inherent in you and me, at least, and probably something inherent in Sentinels and Guides."

"Were Guides ever female, I wonder? ...Shit. That's a whole 'nother dissertation, right there."

"The ultimate in going native..."

"Yeah, my whole observer status is totally and completely fucked now, but you know, it really has been for a long time. It's one of the inherent limitations of anthropology, when you think about it. The fallacy of the observer was pointed out in a pretty fundamental sense by the Heisenberg Principal in physics, but I really think that the full implications of that ... have been slow to ..."

Who knew that a hand on the knee could derail the full-blown Sandburgian expository rant. Kind of a role reversal -- Jim's touch bringing Sandburg back to the here and now from his own personal brand of academia-induced zone-out. Lost in the torrent of words, yet Jim can call him back into the present moment with a touch. Jim smiles and glances over. Blair's eyes are closed.

Jim says, "How you doing with this, Darwin?" His voice is neutral, kind. Way to go. Good. Calm.

"Okay, I think. Yeah. Okay."

"I don't think your only option is looking at it as suddenly turning gay. Don't you think orientation can be a little more flexible than that?"

Blair's lips pull into a half-smile. "Hah. That question, you should ask Carolyn."

Jim snorts, but he leaves his hand on Blair's knee. He's trying very hard not to push but it's really, really, really hard. Very hard. He keeps talking. Maybe that's the way to Sandburg's heart. Through his ears, through being articulate. "Point taken. There was no way I could talk myself into feeling for her what I should have felt. But you know, it wasn't her fault. She expected what anybody should expect in a marriage. She expected me to want her, and I just never wanted her enough. I liked her, yeah, but ..." Jim shakes his head. They are getting close to their building.

"Sheer will power won't make it happen. Or sheer aesthetics either... You really liked Margaret, though, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did. But it wasn't like this. It wasn't even close. Even with the guys back in college, or in basic, it was more intense than that."

"Repression." Blair's voice is thoughtful. Blair covers Jim's hand with his own. "All this time, and there's still so much I don't know about you."

Jim snorts again, and takes away his hand so that he can parallel park. "Well, that's a relief. I don't feel nearly so much like a lab rat now."

They get out of the truck. "Back into the maze now, rat. Maybe it's time for your cheese." Blair grins at Jim and looks very surprised at himself, and still a bit blushy. He has taken himself aback with his own audaciousness, and Jim grins at the rareness of that. Blair doesn't tend to get freaked out by his own over-the-top nature. Jim happily takes Blair's hand again as they ride the elevator, and releases it to unlock their door.

Blair says, "Shit, it's late." Jim stands there and watches him as he looks around the familiar place. All his stuff is back in its accustomed spots, as is the furniture that Jim had dumped into storage in his fit of Alex-induced claustrophobia. It had been a busy couple of days, at the station and at home, since they got back to Cascade from Sierra Verde. And Jim was glad of the heavy lifting. It had given him a way to think about what had happened. His own version of what Blair called processing. He always does his best thinking when he has some heavy, mindless work to do. Blair meets his eyes. "I think I just want to get some sleep, okay?"

"Sure, Chief. No hurry about any of this, you know." Jim spreads his hands. _See? I'm harmless._ Okay. So. Blair is clearly backpedaling, now that they are home, now that they are back in their familiar territory, back on the trails they walk every day from bathroom to bureau to stove to sofa. Maybe the mundane comfort of the routine won't allow this new thing to disrupt their status as roommates, colleagues. Maybe. Jim looks into the kitchen, where they stood, tight together, just a few hours previously. He looks at Blair. Blair is rubbing his hands. Then Blair steps up to him and gives him a peck on the mouth.

"Goodnight, then." He drops his glance and turns away, nervous, and the doors of his room snick quietly behind him. Jim stands there a minute and heads for the bathroom before climbing the stairs. He resists disappointment. Like Scarlett O'Hara, he thinks, tomorrow is another day. A lot of ground has been covered. A lot of good has hopefully been done. Hope is gritty and uncomfortable.

He tries not to think. He strips to his underwear, puts his eyemask on, and deliberately shortens the range of his hearing. If he didn't, without trying, now, he could hear Blair breathing, hear his heart, hear him tossing and turning and trying to get settled, like a dog on a rug. Nowadays Jim has to deliberately tune out the peaceable _thud thud thud_ of Blair's pulse. Impossible to believe, tonight, that he could ever have mistaken Blair's heart for Alex's. Jim relaxes joint by joint into the mattress and the clean, pale sheets, and sleeps.

_black_

Words and slippery ink and elusive old photos of men with feathers in their hair, men with spears, twine in Jim's dreams. Warriors swim in a river of words. He hears Richard Burton the actor, reading from Richard Burton the explorer. The words are visible, black ink on glowing white paper, and the ribbons of letters shake like guitar strings with a pulse-beat, shake and shiver and grow still, over and over. Consciousness returns as he realizes that everything is a dream but the heartbeat. Jim turns his head, pulling off his mask. He hears a sniff. Blair, his heart a little fast for the middle of the night, is standing at the bottom of the stairs. Now he's climbing. Jim glances at the clock. Two in the morning. Jim watches stars emerge from the dark rectangle of the skylight as his eyes adjust. Blair comes right over to the bed and eases down on it. As he moves from sitting to lying, Jim lifts the blankets for him, opening an envelope of warmth. Blair slides in. He is wearing an undershirt and boxers.

"Couldn't sleep?" Jim says.

"Something like that."

Jim tries not to tense; tries not to notice how much he wants to roll toward Blair and pull him close. Jim breathes deeply, letting himself take in Blair: damp skin, toothpaste, sweat, and the slightest waft of mustard releasing through his skin. Blair's heart is slowing. He's relaxing, too, and Jim's lips curve into a smile because Blair is easing a little closer. Blair puts a warm hand on Jim's arm and bends his neck so that his forehead makes contact with Jim's shoulder. Jim covers Blair's hand with his own. Blair's heartbeat lulls him, soothes him. As Jim struggles to frame his contentment in words, to think how to thank Blair for coming up here like this, he falls asleep again.

_black_

The alarm clock wakes Jim -- a soft chirp that doesn't rouse Blair, so now Jim gets to look at him. He leans there on his elbow and argues with himself, watching the cloudy light wash over the planes of Blair's face. The argument is won by the memory of Blair's transient ardent mood, there in the office at Rainier, so real, so sweet, until arousal was swamped by ... what? A heterosexual freak-out? Cold feet at the responsibility of shaman-hood? Something. But the warmth of Blair's mouth, the delicious scent of his interest, had been real. Jim decides to kiss him. Now all he has to decide is which spot. Jim watches the pulse in Blair's neck. Jim remembers how adamant Blair had been, there on the jungle trail after Jim helped Alex escape from the ambush, that Jim was on the side of the cops, still, despite everything. Blair had insisted that to Megan without a flicker of hesitation. Despite _everything._ Jim is once again shocked by Blair's trust in him, by Blair's capacity for forgiveness. Jim presses his lips to Blair's forehead. Blair does not wake. Jim hovers there, tasting Blair's breath, feeling the generous, unconscious warmth pour from his skin. Jim smiles and slides out of the bed and heads for the shower. Before he's out, he hears Blair on the stairs, probably awakened by the noise of the water pipes.

Jim emerges from the bathroom in a towel and serves himself a cup of coffee. He leaves it, minus one swallow, on the bar, and turns for the stairs.

"French toast okay?" Blair says. He doesn't turn around. He's gently waving a pancake turner. He's wearing what he slept in, and he's pulled his hair back with a leather string. Jim admires the backs of his thighs, his triceps. _We made it home. I threw him out, I lost him, but he came back. Here he is._

"Fine," Jim replies, walking. "Better than fine." When he comes back down, Blair is in the shower. Jim eats out of the frying pan, standing up at the stove. Blair emerges from the bathroom, dressed. His police credentials are strung around his neck.

"Ride in with you today?" Blair's glance slides away from Jim's without catching.

_cut_

The HQ is quiet. The captain is still off. A day of paperwork, a day of phone calls. Alex Barnes has been hospitalized in the psych ward of the big hospital in the capital. The nerve gas has been re-filed behind new stainless steel doors. Some of the Rainier regents want to shut down bio-hazard research entirely now. (Sandburg provides that tidbit from his gossip network at the university.) The feds seem bored: No suspect available and conscious equals no urgency to the case. There's no talk of trying to extradite anyone. All offenses were against a foreign government, since the nerve gas deal never went down.

Blair is quiet. He talks with Connor, he teases H. There's a surprising dearth of debriefing. Maybe no one knows quite what to say. They've had weird cases, but this one is right up there among the weirdest. Blair and Jim eat lunch at their desk. They leave early. Jim drives.

"How you doing?" He's not sure what he's asking, but he wants to hear where Blair is. He can pretty much count on Blair telling him. Thank goodness.

"Fine. Tired. Didn't sleep much. Thinking about the shaman thing, the responsibility of that. I just can't help thinking that if I had pursued that sooner, pursued that as soon as I heard it from Incacha, months ago, maybe...."

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe I would have known more. Maybe I would have been able to be..."

"To be better prepared for Alex?"

"Yeah, that, and a whole lot of other stuff. I just feel like I missed a pretty major boat there. You know?"

So that is what Blair is going to focus on first. Not the kissing, the partner stuff. But the shaman stuff. Okay. Fine. One major life change at a time... Being a shaman is a pretty big deal, of course.

Blair goes on, "If I had had more experience with the Otherworld, you know, the visions, both yours and the ones you shared with Alex, I might have grabbed on to what was happening sooner. Hell, and after what happened to us, who knows what we might have been able to figure out together ahead of time if I had had more experience with the visionary stuff. That is truly the most amazing thing -- the identical information in those visions. You and me, you and Alex -- it goes way beyond mass hallucinations and angel reports and phenomena like that. I mean, I always knew your visions had a deeper meaning, but shit..." Blair trails off again, staring out the windshield.

"Well, you can just pick that up now, surely, if you feel it's important, can't you?"

"If I feel it's important!" Blair is sputtering. Jim smiles. Give the kid an opening... Winding him up was always so satisfying. Of _course_ Jim was just trying to be respectful, understated. "I think it's kind of one of the main things, like maybe the eucharist is important to the pope! Excuse me!"

Jim snickers. Blair is staring at him, aghast. "Calm down, Chief. So what do you want to do? Surely you've studied this."

"Yeah, I've studied it. I've studied it but I've never actually tried it; not for this purpose. I've tried a lot of other stuff. But. I think ... to start with ..."

Jim lets him trail off this time. It's Thursday, it's time to stop by the store, get home, cook. They can work it out.

_cut_

Jim kneels in front of Blair where he's curled up on the couch and pulls his book away. "Dinner, Einstein. Third warning."

"Sorry, thanks, yeah. Um." Blair looks longingly at the text.

"You are not reading at the table. You are eating what I cooked, and then you can read till morning if you want."

"Yes, sir, right away, sir," Blair smirks. Jim is relieved. Levity is good. Too serious is bad. Blair thinks through dinner, which is just about as bad as reading, but not quite.

After dinner, with his hands in the soapy sink, Blair says, "I think I should start with journeying with drum music. Hallucinogens, yeah, but they are illegal, yes, I know, don't say it, and actually the drug-induced trips get all the publicity, but apparently the drum works just fine."

"Peyote. Ayahuasca. Stuff like that."

"Yeah, excellent, exactly. Apparently it's different everywhere. Some cultures don't use anything like that. Just drumming or rattles or both."

Blair dries his hands and walks around the counter into the main room to dig through a pile of cd's. He brings one back to the kitchen and shows the cover to Jim. "This is the real drumming, I guess. Copied from the Jivara."

Jim finishes putting the clean dishes away while Blair moves to the stereo and samples the plain, monotonous rhythms. Then Jim finds his keys and heads for the door.

"I'll be right back," he says. He feels Blair looking after him, puzzled but distracted. Things had gotten reorganized in the loft in the moving around of the last few weeks, but Jim is sure he remembers that Blair had not one but several drums stashed in the basement. It takes Jim a bit longer than he thought it would to find the right boxes, but he has remembered correctly. Another brief search for a padded drumstick. Jim quickly tests the three smallest drums and decides on the one with the lowest note. It's about as tall as it is wide, but will fit in his lap if he sits down with it. It's surprisingly light for its size. He doesn't know what kind of wood it's made from, but it's not an antique. The stick doesn't match, but that's okay.

Blair has moved the coffee table and is sitting cross legged in the middle of the floor on a blanket from his room, squinting at the liner notes that came with his cd. He has taken his boots and socks off. He has also turned out most of the lights. He glances up and his eyebrows keep going.

"Oh, hey, thanks, man, that's a very nice thought, but unfortunately I can't do both at once, you know? Beat the drum and concentrate on what I'm seeing, right?" He waves the cd insert and the glossy paper flutters. "Hence the recording, right?"

Jim is looking around, trying to decide if he should sit on a chair, the couch or the floor. He tosses a sofa pillow on the wide brick curb around the fireplace and sits down there with his drum.

"I'd like to do this for you, if that's all right." He has astonished Blair again. "I think I remember how."

"You've done drumming like this? For real?"

"This kind of stuff went on all the time when I was with the Chopec. Every few nights, in fact."

"Right. Huh." Blair is still, kind of an attentive stillness that enfolds his whole body. He is looking at Jim with wonder, and the smile that sneaks over his face is a little shy. "Fair enough." He nods, and reaches to slide the cd case and the notes onto the table. He spins so that his head is nearer to Jim than his feet, and lies down on his back on the blanket. Blair fiddles with his hands for a minute and finally rests them flat on his stomach. He pushes out a breath. Jim waits until he looks fairly settled.

_Come on in..._

"How long do you want to go for?" Jim asks softly, testing the stick against the drum a couple of times. The wave of sound expands around him, richer in the wide space of the loft than in the jumbled basement store-room. The overtones will be very nice.

"I don't know; half an hour? I'm used to meditating for a lot longer than that, but I think this is likely to be a bit more intense."

"All right." Jim takes off his watch and lays it on the bricks beside him, where the face will be easy to see. Blair's eyes fly open.

"Wait, wait, wait. You can do this without zoning." It doesn't quite sound like a question, but it is.

"I think so, yeah," Jim says mildly. He is starting to want to get on with it. It's not gonna be hard; it's gonna be fine. Doesn't Blair realize that? Jim smiles to himself. It all seems so reasonable. A dead Chopec shaman appearing to him, instructing him about his path. Blair forming himself into a wolf and morphing back into Blair, right before Jim's eyes. Finding ancient temples by following a blonde rogue Sentinel convict to Central America. Yeah, whatever. No, this won't be hard. This will be a piece of cake, and at the end maybe Blair will want to kiss him again.

Blair has raised only his head off the floor, not really giving in to his small moment of panic about the potential for Jim zoning. "Well, we're home, anyway. Not much of a downside, all in all." He appears to be talking to himself. "Just a chance of being interrupted halfway through my journey; that can't be too terribly awful; it's not a totally altered state, more like REM sleep, probably..."

"You think about whatever you're supposed to think about. I can handle this, okay?"

"Okay, okay, okay, so now you're channeling Mickey Hart. Knock yourself out." Blair closes his eyes again, head back on the floor. Then his head comes up again. "You know about the stuff at the end? The callback or whatever?"

Jim just glares at him. _Get on with it._ Blair grins and manages to shake his head. Jim can sense him giving up, accepting that Jim knows what the fuck he's doing here, surprising as that apparently is, and he puts his head down. He sighs, and Jim notes the time, waits for the next quiet moment where Blair's breath hangs between exhale and inhale, and strikes the drum. He starts a little slowly, but finds the right tempo soon -- steady and fast. A running pace.

There's plenty to look at and hear and feel to keep himself from zoning, as it turns out. The overtones and the undertones. The dull sound, isolated, of the stick's head hitting the skin. The stretches and small annoyances of this unfamiliar way of sitting. The necessity of keeping his wrist straight and his forearm moving steadily. Half an hour is probably a stretch, but it's the amount of time Blair wants. Maybe his being in good form with dumbbells will balance out his recent lack of practice doing this. But he had told Blair the truth. When he lived in Peru, he had done this with the other men often, for celebrations or ceremonies, or for Incacha or another shaman.

He had wondered if he would see the things Blair sees. If he would be caught in the slipstream of Blair's inner questing. But there's nothing. Reality remains ordinary around him, or at least, what passes for ordinary for Jim. The thought makes him smile. He keeps up the steady drumming. He doesn't zone.

The time, as it turns out, goes by quickly. Whenever Jim glances at Blair, he is smiling slightly. He is perfectly still, but Jim can tell he hasn't fallen asleep. Jim gives the four signal beats and then drums faster for a couple of minutes. It's a relief to change the rhythm. Then he signals that the journey is done. He transfers the stick to his left hand and stretches out his cramped fingers gratefully. The silence is loud. Blair is still just lying there, but his face is calm. No smile, no frown. Neutral. Jim wonders where he went, what he saw, but he knows he should not be the one to break the silence.

Jim puts down the drumstick and eases the drum off his thighs and sets it on the floor. It hisses a little to itself as he sets it up. Trying not to disrupt Blair, Jim carefully stretches. He flinches at the flash of blue-white light and his head jerks up. The black jaguar, sitting behind the railing of his sleeping area, looking down. The lash of a tail. Then it's gone. Jim rubs his eyes, the echo of a feline growl curling through his mind. He rearranges his knees, squats, balancing on one knuckle, and looks over at Blair, listening as Blair's heartbeat fades back in. All of a sudden Blair lifts himself and rolls up, bouncing upright on the balls of his feet.

"Wow," he says. He turns his hands over, palms up, looks around expectantly. His feet soon follow his gaze, wandering around the loft. He fetches up by the kitchen bar, turns and looks at Jim. Jim stands, but he's still waiting. This is Blair's movie.

"That was great!" Blair says. "Just great!" His hands are punctuating every word, pulling his hair, waving around. He is grinning. Jim grins involuntarily, just seeing this. "I got there, man, I _so_ got there -- the wolf was right there, and there was this grassland, and a forest in the distance, and the sky, shit the sky, the stars..." Blair shivers all over. Jim remembers the fun Blair had blasting the bad guys with a fire hose, and the way Blair screamed when he parachuted out of the plane when they had to rescue Simon and Daryl. Blair hugs himself. "We just ran. We ran and ran, side by side, it was effortless. What a trip." He looks up at Jim. "I didn't want to come back! But then I heard the change in the drum, and, you know. I came back up through the fountain and here I was." He shakes his head, pondering. His hands are on his hips.

A spike of ice has pushed down Jim's spine. His happiness is gone. "The fountain? The fountain was in there? In your landscape?"

Blair folds his arms. "No; well, I just. You have to find a way down, you know? So I thought, well, why not dive into the fountain. Use that." Jims eyes widen. "No, it was fine. It wasn't scary." Blair lifts his eyes to Jim. "I mean, it got me there before? You know? The trip was just gonna be a little too permanent that time, of course. Huh -- a truly permanent vacation." Blair chuckles to himself.

Jim sinks back onto his ass on the carpet. "You give new meaning to the phrase, 'off the deep end,' you know it, Chief?" He feels a little shaky. The memories are so unpleasant, and now he is swept into them. Running to that goddamned fountain in front of Blair's building. Hauling him out. The cold, murky taste of Blair's mouth -- algae and chemicals and nothing of himself. His head drops, but there's Blair kneeling beside him, putting his arms around Jim's shoulders.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. It's okay now. I was intending not to tell you; I knew it would freak you out, okay? But it's okay. I mean, we've been there now, you know? No fear, Jim, okay?" Blair is putting his face down, making Jim look at him. Blair jostles his shoulders, gets his attention. "Okay?"

Jim feels Blair's warm hands and the chill starts to pass. He wonders if he'll ever really be over that. Blair's right: Alex's violence was the beginning of some pretty impressive discoveries, some pretty fundamental and glorious changes, but shit. It was not something Jim should ever have let happen. At all. What can he do now but hope -- trust -- that it was worth it, somehow? That it wasn't for nothing? His gut clenches. He looks in Blair's eyes and tries to smile. He wants to kiss him; Blair's gorgeous mouth is right there, but instead he puts his hands up, one covering Blair's against his own shoulder, one fingertip-soft against Blair's lips.

"I'm okay," he grinds out. "I'm just surprised you would use it, but." Jim shrugs. "Your call."

Blair closes his eyes. Maybe he is noticing how Jim's fingers feel against his mouth. They sit there, touching, as usual, but they've cracked through the floor now and they know it. They both know. Blair kisses Jim's fingertips, takes Jim's hand and squeezes it. "It's okay. I swear it's okay. You'll get there, too? Right? You'll get over it. It's okay."

Jim shakes his head. He lovesneeds_loves_ this physical contact, and he's not gonna stop it or move. Blair looks at him for another beat, and then leans forward and hugs him. Jim closes his eyes and he holds on to Blair, there on the loft's floor, in the warm soft light, the aimless, harmless noises of their city whispering around them.

_slow dissolve_

The next journey Blair takes, by the beat of Jim's drum, is a few evenings later, and it goes much the same as before, but this time Jim sees slow tears leaking from the corners of Blair's eyes halfway through. At the end, Blair lies there in the silence for a bit, just like the first time, and then he gracefully gets up and crawls to Jim and hugs him, snuggles in. They sit there next to the empty fireplace for a while, Blair's head on Jim's shoulder.

There are several more trips, quiet, sad or ebullient, and sometimes Blair talks about what he has seen and sometimes he goes right to the laptop and types and reads until quite late. Those nights, Jim generally goes to bed before he's done writing. Blair has not come back upstairs to Jim's bed again. Jim tries not to wonder what kind of rhythm or meaning Blair has found with his searching and reading and his journeys. Their pre-Alex routine feels like a refuge, and Jim tries not to notice all the unfinished business. He tries to stay comfortable in his own skin. It's easy and hard, by turns. And, like the old days when Blair was teaching him to manage his senses, it's actually not that difficult to just shut up and trust Blair's methodical way of working.

Jim is grateful when the police work starts picking up again. Blair's cough disappears. Things seem normal. Glossy coffee-table books on wolves show up in the loft. Snowy and sable fur, with green eyes that look back when Jim pages through the heavy volumes. One was published by National Geographic. The wolves trigger the good parts of Jim's memories of the visions in which Blair joined him. The wolves themselves are nice. The fountain, the arrow in Blair's shoulder, Alex's spreading fire -- Jim is trying not to hang himself up on those parts of his memories. The wolves themselves are warm and vital and reassuring. More photos and posters and small pieces of artwork with wolf themes start showing up at the loft. Blair buys some authentic rattles to go with his drums. Jim remembers that one of the first things Blair hung on the wall of his new office at Rainier was a black-and-white blanket. Jim didn't think much about it at the time, but now it seems like a portent.

One night Jim comes home and surprises Blair howling, loudly and enthusiastically, out on the balcony.

"Sorry. I thought I had a little more time. Sorry about that." Blair is embarrassed.

Jim pulls his head back inside the balcony door, but the moment is over. They make dinner and sit down to eat it. Jim talks about his case, but then he pauses and says, "I heard you growling once. It must have been right after I first saw Alex's jaguar at that bad luck convenience store robbery."

Blair puts down his fork and leans in a bit. "You heard me growling."

"Yeah, uh, I think I was still in a sling, so I was off work and you came home. In fact, didn't I draw before I opened the door?"

"Come to think of it, yeah."

Jim nods to himself. "Do you think you wanted to warn me?"

Blair doesn't give him a direct answer, but he starts talking, kind of an auditory window to the running commentary in his head. Not for the first time, Jim wonders what it would be like to live in there, among all those tangled words and overweening systematic concepts. It would be maddening, he thinks. Like being trapped in an Escher print. But of course he has learned that Blair thrives on all the verbose undergrowth. It seems to nourish him. "It's yet another angle on this, that your visions have this audible component, and that it even carries over to experiencing my animal..." Jim lets himself watch Blair, watch the curve of his jaw, the way the lamplight catches in his hair. The way his chest hair peeks through the V of his shirt. Jim looks at his plate and keeps eating.

_dissolve to montage_

Blair is gone two nights a week for a while because he's found a shamanism class conducted by someone who knows someone who teaches comparative religion at Rainier. Jim is trying to stay balanced on that edge where wanting and not wanting converge. He's not used to that. Usually he either wants and, thus, gets, or rules out and walls off. But Blair will do things in his own way, in his own time, or not at all. Blair is even more stubborn than Carolyn. Ubiquitous as the night. Insidious as water.

When Blair arrives home after his last night of shaman class, he bursts through the door, laughing, swinging his backpack by one strap. Jim switches off the television's sound. Blair pirouettes, pulled by the centrifugal force of his bag. He lets the backpack fall gently to the carpet and gives an evil parody laugh.

"To the casual observer, it's just a backpack, but all along we knew it was a, ta- da.... an urban, Western, 20th-century, medicine bundle." Blair hums under his breath as he goes to the fridge and pulls out a beer.

"Okay, so, Carlos, that's it? You've officially graduated? Not a wannabe shaman any more but the shaman on the beat? So where's your diploma?" Jim looks at the figures on the television as they finish their slapstick scene in silence. He tries not to notice how his own heart is picking up speed. He can smell Blair's excitement. Blair is wandering around the room, restless in his den, drinking his beer.

"The proof of the shaman's authority resides in the judgments of his patients and questioners. Nowhere else." Blair sounds as if he is quoting. Jim smiles. "So, then, tell me, how'm I doing? Because, you know, this shaman has one and only one client. For the foreseeable future."

Blair sits down on the coffee table right in front of Jim and parks his beer. His heartbeat is so loud now. Blair's eyes are sparkling. He takes the remote away from Jim and punches the television off by pointing it over his shoulder without looking. Jim laughs, and then his flippant answer explodes half-formed, because Blair has thrown himself against Jim and grabbed him. His mouth is against Jim's neck. Jim closes his eyes. Blair's vibrating with suppressed emotion.

"It just feels so fucking GOOD to have a conceptual and a practical framework for all the shit I was wanting to do _anyway_ without understanding it. Jeez! I was so stupid to wait so long to get into this. Shit. Why didn't you tell me; why didn't you insist?"

Jim is speechless at Blair's closeness, at the abruptness of this transition. He shakes his head. He strokes Blair's back, feeling his skin through a layer of flannel and a layer of chambray. Blair leans his forehead against Jim's temple. Blair sighs and Jim can feel him relax. A powerful feeling of daring gathers in Jim's midsection. He turns his head, watching, weighing, second by second, and puts his mouth to Blair's. The kiss is tender, but it quickly gains momentum and depth and intensity. Jim's careful distance crashes into itself, gets tangled up in Blair's skin and taste and hands. Jim groans into the kiss. Blair frees his mouth.

"Take me upstairs, now, okay? Let's get this show on the road."

Jim grins, his forehead against his friend's, and pushes up to stand, pulling Blair with him.

They climb the stairs, Blair a couple of steps ahead, and Jim's hand is on the small of his back, but there's no urging needed. Blair flops onto Jim's bed on his back, propped on his elbows, and Jim delays long enough to tear his buttondown and his undershirt off over his head, and then Jim slides up between his legs. If Jim keeps grinning like that his face is gonna start hurting.

Jim flattens his hands against Blair's ribs and asks, "So you're signing up for the full Guide tour of duty, huh? That's your decision."

Blair nods. He probably would have explained, with the glossy photos and the circles and the arrows and the text printed on the back, but Jim finds he can't wait for words and he leans up and kisses Blair. His memories of that one night, that one night after their return from Sierra Verde, before Blair plunged into all his shamanism homework, have been wearing a little thin. Blair's crotch is pressed against the side of Jim's thigh, and his mouth is eager and open. Jim is relieved to discover that Blair is just as good at wordless communication as he is at his normal methods. Jim concludes Blair is saying the equivalent of "Oh hell yes."

When Jim can again take note of his surroundings, his lips feel as stung as Blair's look. He and Blair are twined side by side on the bed, their feet hanging off, and Blair's thigh is between his. Jim slides a palm into the neck of Blair's shirts and meets Blair's eyes. Jim raises his eyebrows. When Blair nods, he starts unbuttoning. Jim's heart is pounding. This is _important._ When Jim glances up to check on Blair, he looks as happy as Jim and at least as nervous. Jim's fingers go on climbing down buttons.

Blair takes a lot of air and says softly, "If you want to, you know, have me, you'll have to show me. I've played around a little with that, uh, area, so I'm pretty sure I'd like that with you but to be honest I really don't know for sure."

Okay. Now Blair is calmly talking about _Jim fucking him._ Blair has jumped right to that. Blair certainly has taken very seriously his review of the berdache material. Jim wants to laugh, wants to make a joke about the ethnological correctness of it all, wants to needle Blair about his scientific thoroughness, but the words won't come out. They get caught on the huge lump of tenderness that's stuck in Jim's throat. So he just nods, and keeps his eyes intently on the progress of his careful fingers. His face is getting hot. He clears his throat. He does want to say something; something encouraging, something reassuring. He tries for the same calm tone. "I know you'd like it. Because I used to like it a lot." Blair squeezes Jim's shoulders, gives him a little shake. Jim glances up and Blair is licking his lips and smiling.

"So I've already totally stereotyped you as a top, huh? Son of a bitch."

Bubbling laughter fills Jim's chest, just the joy he guesses he's going to have to learn to live with now -- joy untouched by irony for the moment, but all he shows is a pleased grin as he shoves at Blair's thigh with his leg and pushes hard, rolling onto Blair. Blair just -- goes. Just goes right over and grins back, his hair falling in a shining cloud around his skull, his warm wide hands on Jim's traps. Blair is hard. Christ, Blair's hard dick is asserting itself against Jim's thigh and it's _warm_ and without much effort at all Jim can feel the pulse beating there. He sucks in a breath and tries to settle down. They've got all night, after all.

Jim leans down and nips at Blair's collarbone, and then at the soft spot just above it. He presses his tongue there, tasting salt. Blair gasps. Jim feels gratified. Jim says, "And you call yourself a liberal and a scientist. What would your committee say. You are so sloppy! It's embarrassing." Jim pretends to sigh. "Okay, okay, fine, I'll conform to your snap judgments, again, Hairboy. Top it is." And Jim, still trying not to do something that could only be described as giggling, shoves his pelvis against Blair's, and Blair groans and shoves back. Yeah, definitely a groan. A good groan. An _oh, yeah, don't stop_ kind of groan. Jim pushes his face into Blair's warm neck and puts a little of his weight on his elbows and snuggles Blair flat against the mattress, shoulders, chest, hips, thighs. Blair tries to inhale and is having some trouble, so Jim eases more of his weight on to his arms.

"Oh yeah," Jim murmurs, not acting now, not at all, because Blair is putting his palms against Jim's skin, sliding tentative hands down his back. His trousers are well tailored and there's not much slack for Blair to use, not much access for Blair to get fingertips under his waistband, but all in good time. Blair clearly wants to go there, and that. Means. Everything. Jim braces on one knee and one elbow and wrestles Blair out of his now-unbuttoned shirts, still pretty much pinning Blair to the bed with his body.

"Oh man, oh," Blair says, and he's cooperating, but his giggle is nervous and his glance slides away from Jim's. Jim eases back a little, pushes up higher and pets Blair's forehead. Blair's nervousness brings him to a halt.

"We're going too fast. We'll do what you want, you know. Slow."

Blair takes hold of his waist and looks earnestly into his eyes. Jim holds the gaze, but he is so aware of the furry sweep of Blair's chest, his wide pecs, his flat stomach, and how his waist narrows into his jeans. Blair's body is usually swathed in layers, as if he's always cold, but Jim has seen his skin before; he knows how good it is, how firm and silky and warm, and he tries to keep restraining himself and listen to what Blair's saying. But his peripheral vision is great, and there's a lot of skin between Blair's navel and his lowslung Levis, and his stomach is rising and falling along the line of his ribcage, and his jeans are old and soft and they button and Jim can feel the change in the quality of heat coming from Blair's groin -- he's definitely still hot, even if Jim has rushed him a little. So listen. Try to listen. Jim frowns and concentrates on what Blair is saying and not on the colossal verdant overdose that is Blair's body.

"No, no, it's not too fast, any more than any of it is too fast, it's just, so different? You know?" Blair runs his hands slowly up Jim's sides, sweeps them across his chest, explores his deltoids, his currently hardworking biceps, his elbows. Blair's palms finally come to rest cupping Jim's nipples and Jim has to drop his head at the bright splash of pleasure. When he can, he looks up at Blair and Blair smiles and looks a little awestruck. Jim blows out air. He's getting lightheaded with all this touching.

"You want me that much," Blair says. Jim nods. Blair watches him, touches him some more, smooths his hands out and across Jim's arms. Jim just stays there, feeling, listening. He wants to close his eyes but he doesn't. Blair smells so good. "It's different, and it's the same, and it's not, but it's you, it's just you, I know you so well. It's so weird. I just feel it and then I get all this confusion, you know, about it being a guy and about it being you, and then I go back to feeling how good it feels if I don't think so much."

Jim effortlessly transfers all his weight to his right arm and gently places his left palm against Blair's cheek. "Has anyone ever told you that -- you think too much?" he deadpans, and Blair grins and nods. He's still petting. His hands are healing, like a hot shower, like sunshine. Jim blinks. He whispers, "It's just us."

Blair nods again. His hands slide up to tighten on Jim's shoulders, and he gets this look of quiet determination and he pushes. Jim lets him roll them sideways. Blair slides clear over him -- transient grabbing ecstasy of Jim's groin -- and Blair leans on one elbow, one leg thrown across Jim's thighs. Jim can still feel Blair's persistent erection; so that's good. Blair keeps petting him, tracing his collar bones, tracing the definition of his abs, roaming fingers along the column of his neck.

"You are so ripped; like some kind of anatomy lesson." Jim smiles, watching Blair's intent expression. Whatever. _Just so you like it; just so you want some of it. I hope._ After a while of letting Blair explore, he slowly raises his fingertips to Blair's lips. Blair kisses them, and then he closes his eyes. He mouths Jim's fingers and sucks two of them in, biting gently. Jim tries to stifle a moan. Blair's right hand is flat against his solar plexus, and it's warm. The hair in his other armpit is tickling Jim's shoulder. Blair is sucking his fingers, sucking and biting them and it's making Jim harder. Jim closes his eyes. He slowly runs the knuckles of his free hand down the soft trail of hair on Blair's stomach and then turns his hand to palm Blair's dick through his jeans. Blair inhales and presses back, still biting Jim's fingers.

Jim murmurs, "Will you, will you let me touch you." Blair's mouth releases Jim's fingers. He shifts to lie flat. Blair is getting kinda close to the edge of the bed, but Jim can keep track of that. Jim follows, rolling against him and he opens Blair's fly. Moving slowly, slowly, he eases Blair's jeans and underwear down a little and he puts his mouth against the warm knot of hair just above the root of Blair's cock. He cups the warm length with one hand.

"Oh shit," Blair says reverently, and Jim doesn't have to check his face. He feels Blair relaxing into it, just going with it.

Jim inhales the rich scent of Blair and says, "Always a crowd-pleaser," and with no more warning than that he slides his mouth down over the crown of Blair's cock and sucks it. He keeps going, taking all of it in that he can, and feels Blair unravel under his hands.

Jim keeps his eyes open; if he closed them he is sure he would zone on the taste, on the smell. He carefully softens his focus; doesn't zoom in, doesn't lose his place, and he thinks, _Put on some music next time..._ one more thing to distract himself, to keep his awareness _out here_. Someday he'll do this and let himself zone; someday he could fucking disappear into Blair, letting the heady invasion of nose and mouth and hands completely overthrow his mind.

He loves this. It's an effort to keep his eyes open, but he does. He tongues Blair's shaft, moves his mouth, slowly speeds up as he sucks. He finds a rhythm, like steady fucking. Blair's totally into it now, moaning and limp. Jim has a moment of feeling the pride of conquest as Blair starts to rock his hips, frankly groaning. Soon Blair is panting and making the most gorgeous, sexy broken noises.

"Jim, Jim, Jim," Fuck, the sound of pleading... Jim hitches his hips a little sideways. His slacks are gonna be stained, but he can cope. He changes his angle, shifts his weight, and speeds up his mouth on Blair's dick and Blair comes, crying out, shaking, swearing. The hot taste explodes and it's all Jim can do not to zone on that, it's so big, so intense and rich, so he pulls back, his mouth still full, making himself spread out his fingers against Blair's sizzling skin, making himself look around the bed, to taking in hearing and sight. He feels full of Blair, lost in Blair, like he's had Blair completely now. Like he's got Blair's essence, his soul, in a safe place, for keeps. He licks his lips, savoring the ebb of the unnerving blast of taste, and studies his lover. Blair's got his hands in his hair, a knee bent up. Jim didn't get his jeans entirely off -- they are just pushed down around his thighs. He looks debauched and gorgeous against the expensive sheets he insisted Jim buy long ago. He looks like a Calvin Klein ad gone porno. Blair shakes his head as if to clear it, and he yanks Jim down against him and pushes his hand against Jim's dick.

"I take back what I said about thinking it's weird, all right? It's frigging perfect. It's heaven. It's... ah. You. Oh shit."

Jim smushes his face into Blair's neck. He doesn't have any words. He struggles there for a minute, feeling love and fear and amazement and abject horniness.

"Good," he manages to say. Blair scoots down and traps his face, makes Jim look at him.

"Oh, no, you don't. You can do better than that. Come on." Blair is grinning at him, and Jim pets his neck, pets on down across his chest, and meets his eyes.

"You're not really gonna try to make me talk now," he says.

"Well, okay," Blair says. He curls down to get Jim's slacks unzipped and peeled off, and the rest of his own clothes get summarily disposed of, too. They're side by side again, and then Blair is intently watching Jim's face as he swipes his tongue across his palm, and Jim jerks and settles as Blair's hand goes to work on him.

"Oh shit," Jim says, closing his eyes, and there's no way to not zone with this, no way, and Blair could be talking to him or not, who knows, but he's going over the edge, fast, the universe is nothing but this, the squeezing friction of his guide's hand, his lover's hand, on his dick for the first time. Not a fantasy, not a wish, but real. The sensations shove Jim over the edge of oblivion immediately, not coming, not yet, but just... gone. It's pleasure so intense that it's like blacking out. Jim is aware, as at a great distance, of himself shouting. Then he does black out. Dark, dark like velvet, dark warmth that smells like Blair.

Other senses besides touch, and then other parts of his skin besides his dick, start to gently reassert their presence. Blair's insistent voice, the low light of the lamp, seem like crashing intrusions as the blue-black, bruising wave of ecstasy recedes. Jim realizes he's panting, his belly wet with come. His heart is racing. His hands blindly follow the sweet reassuring scent and warmth of Blair to their source. Jim hangs on tight and waits his senses out. The universe slowly gets right side up and resumes its normal proportions.

"I'm okay," Jim says. He's interrupting, because he realizes that Blair is still trying to coach him all the way back and that Blair's voice may be getting a little nervous.

"What? Of course you zoned. I wasn't going to bring it up ahead of time and ruin the fucking moment, but my god --"

"It's okay. It's fine." Jim stirs, cups Blair's face. He feels him relax. It's over now; Jim's back. They both know the drill. He continues, "It's just that it's so intense with you, you know?"

"Aw, man, you're flattering me."

"No, I mean it. It's got nothing to do with flattering. With you it's just.. it's like nothing I've ever had before."

Jim puts his face in Blair's neck again and pulls him close. It's impossible to put into words. Maybe Blair will take a stab at it, but it's inexpressible: The utter perfection of having Blair so close, skin to skin. The culmination of all the times Jim's hands, of their own accord, smacked Blair's cheeks or clutched his shoulder through his jacket, all the times Jim's cuffed him or grabbed him or shoved him or put him in a headlock. Touch. Skin. Too much. Impossible. Then his eyes open because he thinks, _Jesus Christ; what will it be like to make love to him? To get inside him?? Jesus!_

Blair, of course, is reading his mind again. "Okay, like, if that's what a simple hand job does to you, we're going to have to figure out a whole new way of coping with the zone-out factor; I can see that coming."

"You said coming." Blair snorts. Jim's voice is slow, like a purr. "Let's worry about that later, Chief. Let's just, worry about that later."

Blair is leaning over him, smiling, petting him again, blue eyes shining, his lush, generous smile so close, so dear, and nothing else matters. At all.

_fade to black_


End file.
